Daredevil (Season 2) – TV Review

In Season 2 Daredevil is crossing paths with the deadly Frank Castle / Punisher along with the return of an old girlfriend Elektra Natchios. Yes, The Punisher’s officially arrived and the premiere episode gets right into it. A very strong start to what looks to be an action-packed, drama-filled season of excitement. Several gangs have tried to muscle in and fill the void. The Cartel. Bikers. The Irish mob. Nature abhors a vacuum. There’s territory to claim. And that idea alone makes for a good starting point. The trouble is that Matt Murdock and friends aren’t dealing with the new villains in town. They’re dealing with the new “hero.” A singularly-focused, shadowy vigilante who’s bent on exterminating anyone trying to move in on Fisk’s turf.

Daredevil has much more going for him in S2. The N&M firm, the DD-Karne-Elektra love triangle, punisher & his trial, the Hand/Chaste war really put a lot on Matt’s plate as he tries to balance between vigilante and lawyer. The Punisher is a highly complex individual, out for blood of the people who killed his family. To say the least, he is a complete bad-ass, and almost hands Daredevil’s ass to him on a platter. Daredevil and Punisher are both alike in some way, but their ideologies differ a lot. Frank believes that only way to clean New York is to kill all the criminals. Daredevil believes that everyone deserves a second chance, and there is good in everyone. I love the psychological debate that the show touched upon. Needless to say, I’m hoping for a standalone Punisher TV series on Netflix after seeing this spectacular portrayal of Jon Bernthal. He knocked it out of the goddamn park. I was apprehensive and excited for him to play the role because of his time on The Walking Dead. It was a very similar character in that he was a decent man who did bad things for what they see as good reasons. I was worried I’d be reminded of that role too much but I was so wrong. The graveyard scene in episode 4……without words.

The fight scenes are pure fun. If you haven’t seen the corridor scene yet, which I bet most of you have, please do. They upped the ante in S2 and this choreography is even better than the first; it is just too amazing and well crafted. Even though this one was not in one shot. You could clearly see cuts this time.

Despite all the praise, I think this season lacked a few things, mainly a cohesive direction. I understand the focus on Daredevil, and Matt’s morals, his relationships with his friends, etc. But there was no main bad guy, no Wilson Fisk, who in my opinion was one of the reasons season 1 was so great. The Hand felt weak to me. They were a bunch of guys running around in ninja cosplay dropping like flies. They had no impact or sense of unease. When Kingpin was on screen you didn’t know what he was going to do. You felt nervous of him. The Hand weren’t intimidating at all and Nobu was definitely not strong enough of a villain to carry them. Also the first half of the season was fast-paced and action packed. The second half of the season was slow and ended to a unsatisfactory finale with a lot of plotline unresolved. After episode 4, things slowed down a bit, which was fine, and while I had no problem with Elektra, and I thought she was really well done, it felt, weird. Once she was introduced to the show, we basically had these two completely different plot lines we would switch between throughout the show, which, were never actually connected as I expected they would be.

Overall, I thought the season was still very enjoyable, but I just felt like after the first half, it lost a lot of momentum and focus. It almost feels like they should of simply chose either Elektra, or The Punisher, and fleshed them out more, save the other for another season. That way we could see more of the characters interacting with one another and we could of had a central main Villain who may have been able to make the season better.